Archive for July, 2014

Thursdays are usually spent in the edit bay cutting together our weekly show which is uploading now. I did however get a little time to start in on the Skydiver paint job. A long road ahead but I least I got a bit in today and a lot more tomorrow.
Back to the Martian tomorrow too. Saturday we have a special guest Tammy Klein at our studio to get her ears cast. We will be making her Vulcan ears and will document the entire process of making the prosthetic ears all the way up to putting her in makeup, and on the bridge in front of camera.

We did lots of shopping for materials today and a lot of work on the Skydiver. Not much more done on the Martian but tomorrow more on him.
The Skydiver has all its drains and holes. Some un-cannon but necessary drain holes on the bottom so the hull can drain water efficiently when in actual water use. Remember this is a radio controlled submarine.
I added most of the small parts to the hull although many are missing from the kit they won’t be too hard to recreate. There’s a base coat of Krylon metal brass on the hull. This will get wet sanded smooth tomorrow and then the sort of Aztec nickel and copper can be started along with the dark colors or anti glare. She’s getting there.
Thought I’d add this picture of Mary at our camera rig which is growing more all the time.
Steve

Today was spent mostly in town shipping. But we got back not too late in the day and I was able to get another couple of hours in on the Martian. Yes it has lips. And eye lids and this means it will have a lot more expression.
The eyes and lids are just for looks right now. I have to make up some actual eyes for the sculpture before I can finish it off. They need to be present in the sculpture and the mold so that when I make the core for the eventual under skull I will have an exact contour match for the lids themselves. You will see what I mean as we go through the steps. Most of you guys that have done this before know exactly what I mean. 😉
It’s still a rough. We are at what I call stage two out of four stages. The suit the Martian wears is a sort of Steam punk looking rig and have more of a military camo Desert Mars look to it.
More tomorrow.

We had a long day at SNG today. First we packed up the Enterprise D. It ships tomorrow. Additionally we put the Velcro in the Sixth Finger mask and it will ship tomorrow to. This means a trip into LA to my favorite packer and shipper.
After all that dust settled I cut most of the drains out the Skydiver. Except for adding the small parts she’s nearly ready to start the paint job.
I had a little over an hour left at the end of the day and roughed out by hand our Martians Attack SNG Martian.
This is only an hour’s worth of sculpting to get the rough massing on the way. No tools were used except for that pencil you see. The eyes are in just for looks. Once the sculpture is finished they will be removed for molding.
I know it doesn’t look cannon. I am purposely not looking too closely at the original Top cards at all but rather free forming from my own thoughts. In fact his costume has been redesigned, the props and the head wear. That’s right I’m putting my own spin on it. We are also going to make up some cards that show these changes as though the cards looked like this design back in the 60s. And the cards will be call,” Martians Attack.”
We are now in pre-production as we close on finishing our last client model. We will also be starting in on casting our perks for the backers. Let Martians Attack SNG begin!
Steve

The Enterprise may not look much different to you from yesterday but there is one small difference. It’s done!
I managed all the other edge windows. 10 Forward is quite evident now. The officer’s lounge was a joke. They made these little round impressions in the deck for them. I carved in my own and made them the right shape. You would think as many times as that classic shot has been seen in the opening credits of TNG they would have got that right. But they didn’t.
She has a nice thick semi gloss clear coat on and the decals look painted on now. Based is finalized. All the phaser banks have been painted titanium gold. And the copper deflector is now copper with some Alclads. Last of the light leaks are fixed. Oh and the nacelles have had another coat of copper on them too.
We will get some beauty pics this week against green screen to play with and off she goes to her home in China Monday. On to the Skydiver!
Steve

Ok here it goes. I get all the rest of the decals on in record time. I say to myself, “Steve you can clear coat it tomorrow. You’re done.” Then I look at the Christie’s auction photos of the D one last time and it hits me. Where is 10 Forward? In fact where are all the fraking windows that line the saucer leading edge?
I check the model and the L.E. no windows. Not one even scored into the hull. I look at the lower section and it has them. But they are all over the map. Uneven. So I look at endless pictures of the D and get a feel for the windows. I mark them all on the top side L.E. of the saucer with a fine sharpie. I do the same for the lower saucer section.
Then using my special tool I proceed to scratch away the windows so some of them glow. But on the edge all they do is chip the paint and it’s not pretty. I get what I consider to be a less then thrilling job done and move on to the top section. This time there’s no scribes to scratch within. Horrible. Just awful.
What to do, sitting there in the darkened room. I look at the table and the tools there and one of my rat tail files jumps out at me with its sharp edge. I take it to the edge of the saucer and file. Bingo a perfect window and no chipping. In less than an hour the entire top saucer leading edge is done.
So tomorrow I’ll clean up and the lower saucer edge and do the same thing. I also started the few windows on the engineering section. You guessed it, AMT has no windows there either. Me fix.
She looks done in these pictures and she will be tomorrow. Honest.